


We’ll (Never) Be Apart

by alyyks



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Slavery, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Gardulla the Hutt - Freeform, Star Wars Rare Pairs Exchange 2017, Tatooine Slave Culture (mention), pre-TPM
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2019-02-03 09:51:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12745923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alyyks/pseuds/alyyks
Summary: They were not born of the place they met. They were not born of the places they ended in. Neither had believed in those places crossing again.





	We’ll (Never) Be Apart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anaraine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anaraine/gifts).



> Could not pass by this pair/treat without doing something for it. Unbetaed.

Anakin was not born on Tatooine. Sometimes Shmi forgets about it. It’s the sand, and the sun, and the long hours breaking her back on household labor at Gardulla’s, baking all thoughts out of her head but for Anakin’s and her immediate survival.  
  
Anakin forgets, too, if he ever knew the freighter ship he was born on, the long months in space, the cold recycled air. He doesn’t grow fast. There is little food to share in Gardulla’s household, no place to grow hunger-killing grains, every drop of water and handful of soil saved and hoarded and paid in lashings if found on a slave. Her son doesn’t grow fast but he lives, and he smiles, and he knows mechanics before he really knows how to walk.  
  
Shmi was not born of Tatooine, and she wasn’t born on the freighter ship that brought them here either, or the planet she was owned on before, and she was not born a slave, and she forgets it. It is safer, that way. The past is gone, her next action is what shapes her.  
  
The ones born of Tatooine have stories, and community. Shmi learns of Ekkreth, of Depur, of a thousand ways to breath dreams and hopes, of passing messages, of having a collective past larger than one individual, longer-lasting than a human memory. Shmi can learn, can help, and so she does. It’s as easy as that, has to be, always has been. The stories she learn, she shares with Anakin the same way she shares her food: so that he grows, and keeps smiling, and learn about knowledge given and hidden, what is safe to know and what is safe to forget.  
  
Shmi makes herself forget the name of the man from those long months in space, a lifetime ago. She doesn’t forget his kindness, his eyes, or the rarity of his smiles: those were gifts, and there are too few of them in her life to throw away. However, the dream of seeing him again someday, the peace between them, the quietness of sitting shoulder to shoulder with Anakin spread across them, she can not afford. He was sold before her and Anakin, to spice transports, probably to the spice mines in the end. She can hope he lives, and that is all she can think on that. It is the past.  
  
Her present is ensuring Anakin’s survival, her survival, the next mouthful of water.  
  
-  
  
Jango was born on Concord Dawn. Was born during a farm raid. Was born on Galidraan in the middle of corpses. Was born in a spice mine with shackles digging into his wrists and a collar on him and the open wounds of repeated lashings on his back. He doesn’t forget. Each memory, each minute of his life build on to the next. It’s knowledge, experience, a way for the past to stay past by shaping the future through his present actions.  
  
He doesn’t forget, because he is the last one who can settle blood debts and scores, he is the last one who can track and kill Death Watch members—a death for a death for his shieldbrothers and shieldsisters and _vode_ killed on Galidraan. He’d burn the galaxy to take that revenge, to ensure his _vode_ ’s names are remembered and the ones of Death Watch go to the void, to make sure no-one else, fighter or family, would be killed by _Kyr'tsad_.  
  
He doesn’t burn the galaxy, can’t, not by himself. Set on his path as he is, he makes deals with others, he plans, he remembers the past and find his enemy.  
  
The Mandalorian Civil War raged on and he is the last fire burning.  
  
The dark eyes and dark hair and kindness and steel of a human woman he could have learned to love, had loved, he doesn’t forget, exactly. There had been peace between them, for too short a time, in a place where peace was desperately needed.  
  
Jango can’t afford peace in revenge. He remembers her name, and he keeps a search for her and her son—if her new master kept their names, if the records are above-board, if they are still together—and it does not stay his hand away from his own path and the blood he sheds. He can’t afford to put a target on anyone else’s back.  
  
His past swallows him.  
  
-  
  
Shmi forgets she is not of Tatooine. Anakin does not. He dreams of bigger places, of freedom, of Jedi Knights and podraces he wins and becoming a pilot; all escapes further than their transmitters will ever afford them. She cannot take his dreams away—those might be the only thing he has to himself—at the same time she cannot let those unreachable, unaffordable dreams to fester one day in bitterness.  
  
He is far more than just a little human boy not quite past his fifth birthday. He’s fast like all little boys that age seems to be, and strong, and good with picking engine pieces, and powerful in a way she can only give to the Force.  
  
The first time he came to her telling he had dreamed of coming back to Tatooine to free all the slaves, she smoothed his sun-bleached hair back and held him against her to ward off the chill of what was left of the night.  
  
Then there are other dreams, with details and the names of people they do not know yet until the events Anakin see come true. They come often, and are repeated until they happen. Anakin dreams the details of Gardulla losing bets, dreams of the names and faces of new slaves in the household, so many separate incidents that Shmi can only conclude her son dreams true. With the slave myths of Tatooine, she teaches him to keep his dreams secrets he only shares with her.  
  
The dream of freeing the slaves on Tatooine comes back the same, and back, and again. All she can think is that her son tells it by starting by I come back to Tatooine.  
  
Shmi’s son dreams true, and will leave Tatooine, and come back of his free will. She takes strength in that. She hopes she’ll be there to see him, then.  
  
When Anakin comes to her telling her his dream about a man with iron skin who comes back for them with rare smiles and a little brother, and that dream comes back as often as the others… she can’t afford to take strength in that.  
  
It is a harsh existence, harsher still because of the mistakes of the one who owns her. Gardulla’s household leaks money like the suns leach water out of Tatooine. Shmi counts the days until Anakin and she will have to be sold to recoup gambling debts—probably not the first ones, but probably not the last either. Non-content to be a gambler, Gardulla is also badly advised, her majordomo taking his own cut and favoring the entertainers and the spice addicts over security and the core of bodies needed to run the house.  
  
In the middle of the day, her hands scrapped by the fraying cables of the vaporator she has to fix again and the twin suns beating her and what little water she has for the day into the sands, she can’t stop the thought: _Jango. His name was Jango and he was mandalorian._    
  
-  
  
Jango takes his revenge and the galaxy still stands. He’s not welcome in the Mandalorian Sector anymore. It’s politics all the way down and fear of Death Watch and a call for peace all in one.  
  
He does not know what peace is anymore. Who is next, whose death will ensure the fight is done? Whose death will bring him peace? There were Jedi on Galidraan, there were Jedi during the Mandalorian Civil War. Jango knows his history: Mandalore and Force-users are entwined like murderous lovers stabbing each other in the back. He can’t dismantle the Order on his own, can’t strike at the Republic who used his people and will continue to turn a blind eye on the fight for survival that is life in the Outer Rim, on slavery.    
  
He was a Journeyman Protector, a mandalorian trooper, the Mandalore for too short a time. He was a slave and an escapee and a man who made death his business.  
  
He keeps death. His revenge did not go unnoticed—he is presented with contracts, with bounties. The work of bounty hunter is a good career for a mandalorian. Unlike the mandalorians who hunted before him, he has no farm to send the money to, no family’s income to complete, no clan to supply with off-world imports.  
  
Jango Fett is very, very good at his work. His list of contacts grows. The alert with Shmi’s and Anakin’s names—if those are still their names, if they were sold openly, if they stayed together—stays silent.  
  
And then one day, his bounty is to be delivered to Gardulla the Hutt on Tatooine.  
  
-  
  
Tatooine is less hot than other desert planets he’s been to are, but the twin suns are merciless. Outside of the few settlements, there is nothing to see but the glare of the suns on sand, sand and more sand. It rather looks like the desert plain of Sindari, only with more traffic and a more diverse population: smugglers and slavers and a thousand passerbys in search of goods and services illegal in the Republic so close and so far away.  
  
Jango’s bounty is still wailing in the hold when the _Jaster's Legacy_ touches ground. The bounty gave a comm contact to call once in Mos Espa. And this is the first problem. The comm call goes through, but the person on the other side despite identifying itself as a member of Gardulla’s household, has no idea what Jango is talking about. They keep being squirrelly, even once Jango transmit the original bounty message, say they have to kick that up to Gardulla herself.  
  
Jango gives them two local hours. After that, well, bounty hunters might not an honorable lot, but they keep long memories for unpaid bounties, and are incurable gossips. Spreading the word is only a matter of finding the right cantina. Gardulla does have a reputation in his circles already, for gambling and losing and being a bad loser at that. There are rumors of destabilized power and Hutts maneuvering against each other running already. Power changing hands is always a good business opportunity.  
  
Jango reminds the one on the other end of the call of all that, in not so many words.  
  
He sits back in his seat, crosses his arms. The walls of bay he touched down in are a pale ochre color, like most of the buildings on the ground. Idly, he checks the search he still has running with Shmi’s and Anakin’s names. After over six Standard years, he has little hope it will ever give him an answer.  
  
In that landing bay, in Mos Espa, on Tatooine, it gives him something. For the first time in years, Jango Fett feels hope and the fear that comes from that hope being taken away by a situation outside of his control.  
  
When Gardulla’s men come to the landing bay with a repulsor cart and no even close to the amount of the bounty, it is the affair of only a few minutes and a few threats to follow them to Gardulla herself. On the way, he makes plans and discards them immediately.  
  
The Hutt is going to get herself killed with her stupidity, is what Jango thinks walking in her main room—he’ll never call those rooms of theirs throne rooms. Half the hanger-ons and entertainers are high on spice and hard drugs, the rest is too stupid or cocky to see that the ship they’ve hitched themselves to is taking sinking.  
  
Gardulla perches herself on an elevated slab like a beached whale on a pedestal, as if that would impress him. Jango keeps one arm at his side, in reach of this blaster. The other is fisted in the collar of his bounty, half-kneeling on the floor and still making small terrified noises.  
  
The Hutt hems and haws through a translator droid, tries to appeal to his better nature—Jango has to mute the audio output of his helmet not to laugh—runs more circles around the pot to get out of paying.  
  
Jango is clear in his threat this time: bounty hunters have long memories for the ones slipping out of paying.  
  
It finally comes to the real negotiations. Gardulla asks what he will take, Jango repeats the full amount of the bounty—every time it’s repeated it makes less and less sense that this was the amount asked for the being kneeling half out of his mind with terror, and it sounds more and more like Gardulla never intended to pay.  
  
“Slaves!” Gardualla finally bellows. “I’ll give you slaves! Take your pick!”  
  
It’s not a plan. It’s not a plan and it worked.  
  
Jango wants to throw up and burn this place to the ground in equal measures as a line of mostly-humanoid beings is ushered into the room and some of the entertainers are roused from their drugged stupor. The slaves lined up are far less than needed to work in a house the size of Gardulla’s. The Hutt really is done, Jango’ll have to pass the word.  
  
He recognizes her, even six years later, even with six years of desert marking her face. She has the same eyes, the same hidden steel in her spine. Jango has to be slow, can not give away any kind of weakness for the Hutt to catch. He has to make a show of reluctance, sneering at the ones reeking of drugs and passing by the ones too young faster.  
  
Finally, he points at Shmi. “Her.”  
  
“I have a son,” she whispers, staring at his visor, and he nods as if he didn’t know that information before the guards can move to shut her up.  
  
“How old is he?”  
  
“Six.”  
  
“I’ll take him too.”  
  
There’s more complaints from Gardulla, but they are quickly cleared. Then there’s another round of complaints when Jango asks for Shmi’s and Anakin’s transmitter remotes—not by name, he calls them the slaves and every minute that pass is one minute too many.  
  
Jango waits for them, and Gardulla tries to offer him food and entertainment while he is there. When Shmi and Anakin show up, he presses them out, leaving with the barest of pleasantries. He might have made a enemy of that Hutt. Jango has no plan to ever step foot on Tatooine again.  
  
“Is there anything you need here?” he asks Shmi and Anakin once they reach Mos Espa and its main market area. Between the two of them, they have three small bags and the clothes they have on their backs.  
  
“No, master,” Shmi answers.  
  
Jango shakes his head. “Don’t call me that.” It’s only once at his ship that he realizes she doesn’t know his name and who he is—he still hasn’t removed his helmet and Gardulla hadn’t used his name once while Shmi was in the room.  
  
Leaving that planet behind takes precedence. He does that fast, Shmi strapped in the co-pilot seat with Anakin in her lap. Only once in hyperspace does he take a breath.  
  
He takes the remotes out of the pouch he put them in, presses them both into her hand. Before she can say anything, he takes his helmet off.  
  
Shmi gasps. Anakin’s reaction is more complicated to understand: “Mom, mom, I told you he would come!”  
  
Shmi’s hand on his face startles him; he hadn’t expected the move. Her hand has calluses and nicks—and in her smile, he can see the six years past.  
  
He covers her hand with his.  
  
“I hoped you were alive,” she says.  
  
He’s holding her hand now, and she has turned her hand so as to link her fingers through his.  
  
“There’s much we have to talk about,” he answers. He kisses her hand.  
  
Anakin surprises him, by coming to him and placing his little hand on the cold metal that covers his knees. “Is my brother there?”  
  
Jango has no idea what to make of that. He turns to Shmi in a silent question.  
  
“That’s one of the things we should talk about,” she says, and that’s not the smile he remembers that she wears. It’s a new one.  
  
-  
  
Shmi was not born of Tatooine, was not born in a freighter, was not born on the planet before that. She survived those, she kept living. The remotes in her hand have the weight of a freedom she can barely remember, a freedom she’ll have to learn all over again, just like Anakin.  
  
Jango— _His name was Jango and he was mandalorian._ —has new scars on his face, the eyes of one who has seen death, but the smile hiding at the corners of his mouth is the same.  
  
She brings his hand to her face.  
  
She was born of hope.


End file.
